Tiny Timmy Expands Pet Safety Campaign with Safe Flea Soap

A neurologically impaired spokecat on a healing journey and his advocate petmom are excited to launch an Indegogo campaign to turn their small safe soap production and distribution project into a business that will keep more pets healthy and flea free.

Tiny Timmy the cat came into the life of Claudia Tietze in 2009 as a damaged kitten; flea riddled, poisoned by chemicals, and with neurological problems. Claudia devotes herself to Timmy’s care and rehabilitation, while also educating the public about safe and unsafe flea treatment options and waging a campaign against the toxic flea products she blames for his neurological disorder.

The vet who saw Timmy after Claudia rescued him did not expect him to live, but, thanks to Claudia’s determination to save him, Timmy lived and began his healing journey. Timmy will never be completely normal, but he has made remarkable progress in overcoming his severe neurological issues. Regular acupuncture treatments have been a very helpful part of his rehabilitation.

Claudia has worked tirelessly to protect pets from the harmful OTC flea products that have harmed and even killed some pets. Along with her outreach work with the public, she has met with EPA officials as a representative of the movement to protect children and pets from toxic chemicals. when the FDA recently announced that some flea collars were being voluntarily removed from the market, their danger to children was cited.

Claudia says of her greater mission: “I decided it wasn’t enough to tell people of the dangers of flea & tick products without offering a safer alternative. It’s sort of like telling someone they can’t have chocolate cake, but not offering something better. I did a lot of research and put my experience designing soaps to good use and called on my friends Johnna and Rob, the experts over at Oregon Rain Soap. They were very excited to help get our soap off the ground and work together to create the most amazing pet soap on the market!

“Timmy is a cat who has neurological damage from his exposure to toxic, harmful flea and tick products. We’ve been educating folks, but now it is time to step it up a notch! We want to start a company to sell non-toxic flea soap safe for cats, dogs, kids, adults and the planet. Once we get that under our belt, we can work on creating new and safer alternatives to the harmful stuff. Check out our IndieGoGo Campaign to help us make our dream come true.

“For the past several years we have been selling a tiny amount of Timmy’s flea soap in order to donate bars to causes, rescues and people in need. We rocked! We’ve donated over 1,000 bars! Now it’s time to make a change and do this as a business so we can reach even more people and help even more pets by offering a non-toxic, natural, gluten free, soy free, non-GMO and sustainable flea & tick soap that is luxurious and effective. While we are making this move we are also enhancing our base recipe to remove soybean (a lot is GMO) and cottonseed oil (one of the highest pesticide uses on crops). Introducing Tiny Timmy’s Dirty Flea Soap!”

“I was rescued from death. When the peeps came to pick me up, they were told I had a “muscle disorder” and would never get better. The bad people thought this was funny. They would try to push me around like a broken Tonka Truck to get me to run so they could laugh… It wasn’t funny…

“The peeps noticed straight away that my body was coated with something. It felt like dried old hairspray to them. They started not feeling so good, then figured out it was Sergeants Flea & Tick spray. It’s marked for cats, but it has pyrethrins and permethrin in it. Both of those are toxic to kitties. The bad people gave a bottle of it to my peeps. The smiled and said, “Only $2 at Walmart”

“I was so very sick. And the spray they used on me didn’t even work. All the fleas just clung closer to my skin. The peeps gave me a flea comb and a warm bath. I was too sick to care, so I just hung there in their arms. They flea combed me after too. There were about 60 fleas in the tub, about 40 they pulled off of me with the first combing… After the bath, there were even more on my little body. Over 350 fleas came off of me. I felt so much better without my hitchhikers, but I was still too sick to care much…

“I could not walk and could hardly stand. I mostly just laid around. The peeps brought me a pet bed in my special room where I stayed for a while until I was strong enough to be around the other kitties. I couldn’t get into or out of the pet bed myself. I had severe tremors and muscle spasms. The peeps watched me all day and night to be sure I didn’t have a seizure.

“I was so weak I could hardly keep my head up by myself. If I tried, it would lull from side to side and I would just close my eyes cuz it made me dizzy. The peeps held me a lot and took me to see a vet who knew a lot about kitties like me.”

(Click the link to read more.)

This 2011 KATU news report with Claudia and Timmy tells Timmy’s story and features Claudia’s advocacy efforts to protect pets from dangerous chemicals in OTC flea treatments:

About Karen Harrison Binette

Comments

Thanks so much for covering Timmy! It’s such an important issue to offer better alternatives. Elise, thanks for addressing Nancy’s comment on the CH.
The soap is also great for skin allergies and gentle enough to help heal hot spots.

My cats, Tooga and BlueBelle were poisoned by Hartz Ultra Guard on 11/6/12. Both have permanent neurological disorders and I will syringe feed Tooga every 4-5 hours for the rest of his life. Thank you for sharing Timmy’s story and thank you Timmy for creating a great product.

Claudia and Timmy have worked tirelessly for the last four years to try and raise awareness of this issue. In spite of what the manufacturers like to claim, many cases of adverse reaction were actually caused even when using the product completely in accordance with its makers’ instructions. Please contribute to their IndieGoGo campaign, or at least leave a comment. Next time, it might be YOUR pet.

OTC flea and tick products hurt and kill innocent pets. If you are looking for an inexpensive and versatile product, you need to check out the Dirty Flea Soap. Stop by the IndieGoGo Dirty Flea Soap link. Contribute, leave a comment, or do BOTH! Be the change you want to see.